In a mission to tackle the overflowing scraps bin, I strip-pieced the outer cover, made a little pocket trimmed with Japanese sewing-themed ribbon gifted to me by Joanne many moons ago, and pinked some inner pages from brushed cotton. The little embroidered 'needles' label was made in my enthusiasm for the project back in 2008, and has since been languishing in my workbox; I pinked the edges and attached it to the cover with fusible web and running stitch.

There's a small pocket on the inside cover, and a felt patch on the back
inside cover for tucking in needles mid-project. The idea for the
embellished inner pages came from this sweet needlebook tutorial seen over on pinterest. I so enjoyed prettifying the pages and can see this being an ongoing work in moments of boredom.

In other news the paper-pieced mini quilt is taking shape. The piecing is now finished, the paper pieces have been popped out (basting stitches removed with the aid of the marvellous pushy/pokey/stuffy/thready tool that is 'that purple thang'), and the whole thing has been pressed and slipstitched onto pale grey linen (it was also slipstitched on to the leg of my jeans in the process, and swiftly removed before dashing out of the house on the school run).

For the quilting, I've picked out the hexagons with a running stitch in grey stranded cotton (and how easy it was to find an embroidery needle in my trusty new needlebook!). This evening I shall be hand finishing the binding in front of Death in Paradise, because that is how I roll (and also because it is much easier to combine handsewing with something sedate like Death in Paradise than with our other current viewing, The Killing, where somewhat greater concentration is required!).